Alobha wrote:That may be right for a less-formal training of the Brahma Viharas, where it depends much on the situation what is most skillful to develop. However, it stands in contrast with the non-random order given like in the Sankhitta Sutta (and a few other Suttas) and the Visuddhi Magga.

Thanks Mike. I don't look into the study section very often, but this was very helpful indeed! It's interesting that there are clearly different sequential approaches to awakening and of course those depended on the context / the person who asked the Buddha for advice. Neither of them are "wrong", since they all work and lead to the same result, but different people benefit from different advice on how to best proceed. I think that's important to keep in mind.

It should not be thought that the eight categories or divisions of the Pathshould be followed and practiced one after the other in the numerical order. But they are to be developed more or less simultaneously, asfar as possible according to the capacity of each individual. They are all linkedtogether and each helps the cultivation of the others.

Alobha wrote:I for example would, right now, profit more from cultivating Upekkha but it doesn't look like I'm meant to develop this Brahma Vihara before reaching the third jhana in the other three.

It isn't that you're not meant to develop upekkhā *at all* before reaching the third jhāna in the other three. Rather, it's that you're not meant to develop it with with the fourth jhāna as your aim. This is not to say that you can't develop it with other aims. For example, in the mettabhāvanā section of the Brahmavihāra chapter you will find quite a number of upekkhā-arousing practices, such as recollection of ownership of kamma. The mettā-developing yogi doesn't practice these aiming at the fourth jhāna, but rather to get over any antipathy towards particular beings that is impeding his arrival at non-discriminating mettā.

...and this thought arose in the mind of the Blessed One:“Who lives without reverence lives miserably.”— Uruvela Sutta, A.ii.20

It were endless to dispute upon everything that is disputable.— William Penn Some Fruits of Solitude,